Site Mobile Navigation

Posts tagged with SMUGGLER’S COVE

The tiki gods have heard your prayers! The old East Side Company Bar on Essex Street will soon be reborn as a neo-Polynesian lounge called Painkiller, Kate Krader reports. It will be run by two of the barmen behind Dutch Kills in Long Island City.

A few weeks ago, in a piece about rum, I wrote about the neo-tropical movement, in which bartenders give old tiki drinks the same kind of attention to detail that they have been lavishing on Manhattans and Aviations. (The movement’s pioneer is Martin Cate of Smuggler’s Cove in San Francisco. Its spiritual leader and mentor is Jeff “Beachbum” Berry.) Reporting that article, I spent some time chasing down rumors of new tiki bars in New York. I never got anywhere, but my spider-sense was tingling, and now I know why.

Ethan Kaplan for The New York TimesThe Top Notch Volcano at Smuggler’s Cove in San Francisco

Smuggler’s Cove, Martin Cate’s new tiki bar and shrine to rum in San Francisco, had its media preview four days before its Dec. 8 opening. Mr. Cate served five drinks from a menu that will have 80 next week, and he allowed guests to poke around the space, which is 95 percent finished.

The opening has been much anticipated as Mr. Cate is an acknowledged master of both the rum cocktail and of tiki culture. One poster on a tiki forum called Mr. Cate’s last bar, Forbidden Island in Alameda, Calif., “probably the most perfect realization of neo-Tiki to date.” Read more…